Five on Friday

Yes, yes, I know its Saturday, but Amy at Love Made My Home gives us extra time and this week I need it.
Summer just saps my energy and drains my brain so please excuse my rather mundane five.

The First is my summer wardrobe.  I live in shorts, short or sleeveless tops and walking shoes.  The flip flops I wear in the pool because when my plantar fasciitis is acting up you're not supposed to go barefooted anywhere.  I don't normally like anything between my toes, but these aren't too bad.  I don't like sleeveless tops because I have fat arms no matter how much I exercise, but the heat demands as little clothing as the law allows.  The top is from Loft and I have it in several colors and the shorts are Gloria Vanderbilt because she understands short, round women.  I have shoulder length hair and in cooler weather I actually curl it.  But in the summer I wash it, blow it dry and put it up in a clip or a scrunchy.
So my summer wardrobe:

The Second one is today's lunch.  We're going to have lamb shish kabobs with lamb, potatoes, Videlia onions, green peppers, mushrooms  and a shrimp at each end.  The shrimp are just because we love them.

The Third is the books I read and are currently reading.

I read: Long Way Gone: The Memoir of a Boy Soldier by Ismael Beah.  What a sad story about children dragged into the war in Sierra Leone

Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genova The story of a family that discovers the father has Huntington's disease.  The dilemma is, do you want to know if you carry the genetic mutation that causes this disease?

Dry Bones a Walt Longmire novel by Craig Johnson.  I've just discovered this series and ordered the first one.  I understand that it is a tv series too, but I've never seen it.  This one was about dinosaur bones and Native Americans.

Those 3 I finished, now I'm working on The Last Plantagenets by Thomas Costain---this is a reread, fits in with my class that I'm taking.

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner.  This is a reread too.  I read it many years ago and thought it was an incredible book, so I wanted to reread it and see if I still felt that way about it.  I do, it's a wonderful book about the West.

The Power of Three by Laura Lippman.  This is the story of a high school shooting, strangely enough by a girl.

Fall of Giants  by Ken Follett.  I've been working on this one for awhile, but I had library books to read and return and this one had to linger for awhile.  Family saga, world war I, a Russian family,  2 British families, a German family and an American.  It's good, but I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would.

The Fourth is what was on my MP3 player this morning while I was exercising.

Iris  by the Goo Goo Dolls

500 Miles by the Proclaimers

You're 16  by  Ringo Starr

Everyone Wants to Rule the World   by Tears For Fears

I Want You To Want Me   by  Cheap Trick

We Got the Beat by  The Go-Goes

And the Fifth  is the movie we saw this week, besides Jurassic World.  We saw the Kingsman with Colin Firth and enjoyed it very much.  Mr. Darcy, who knew you could be so dangerous.

Well I got this done too late to be on the list at Amy's, but I did get it done.

So please join  the others for Five on Friday.

What Have I Been Doing?

I be bad, I haven't posted all week, not from lack of ideas, more like a lack of energy.
Monday was spent mowing our lawn, in 96º heat.  I don't want to say it fried my brain, but it didn't help.
Tuesday we finally made it to the theatre to see Jurassic World and we really enjoyed it.  Not because of the storyline, rather predictable, not the stars, didn't recognize anyone although the lead guy was ok, definitely not because of the pathos they kept trying to interject.  No, no, no, it was the dinos of course, particularly the raptors and their part in the movie.  So if you go to see it don't look for a great story, character development or any other such mundane thing, go for the dinos.
Ah, then Wednesday I had to get caught up on a class that I'm taking, "England in the Time of Richard III".  I am a Richardian and have always had an interest in the Plantagenet Kings so I was really looking forward to the class.  It's been a little slow going this first week and many  of the discussions seem to be made up of how many  people like Phillippa Gregory, who had written numerous fiction books about this period, and ewwww, wasn't battle savage--who knew.  So I'm a little disappointed so far, about the only thing I've learned, and I actually think I knew it already, just forgot it, is that you can date peat and that's how they finally found the bog where the Battle of Bosworth took place.
Yesterday evening we had a huge storm and there are branches and parts of trees down all over our neighborhood.  We were lucky, bits and pieces of branches  on the lawn, but not much else.  Our electricity was out for nearly 2 hours, but finally came back on as we were getting ready to jump in the pool to cool off.  Took a bit to clean the pool today, lots of leaves and leaf debris.
So that was my week.  No rain today or at least not so far.

A Few Sunday Thoughts

Too hot for much thinking, but I'll try,  It was 98º here on Friday and Saturday, they say it's cooler today, but you couldn't prove it by me.  I know Angry Parsnip at Two Little Square Black Dogs is hotter in Arizona, but they don't have the humidity we do.  So laying low and eating light---ham sandwiches and pasta salad--that's about all you can do.
Try to eat some fruit every day, bananas being my favorite.  But I like them slightly on the green side and in this heat they go bad quickly.  If you put them in the refrigerator they turn black.  So while out shopping at a store that I don't usually shop at I bought some lovely green grapes.  Talk about bitter grapes, they were one step from being vinegar.  I put some out on the counter to see if I could ripen them up, but it was no use.  A very expensive mistake, I won't be buying produce from that store an more.
We swim every day so when I saw an article about what pools turn our eyes red it caught my eye.  When I was a kid we'd visit the local swimming pool and swim until our skin was pruney and our eyes looked like something out of a bad vampire movie.  We always blamed the chlorine.  Scientist now tell us it wasn't the chlorine, it's urine.  When urine combines with chlorine it produces  chloramine which is a derivative of ammonia.  Now isn't that a pleasant thought.  Glad I have my own pool and that no kids swim in it because you know that's who's weeing in the pool.
I need to do some decluttering my closet, Goodwill you're in luck and then it's lunch time.  Hope you all have a great weekend.

Five on Friday

I'm joining in with Amy (Love Made My Home) and all the others for Five on Friday.  A real mixture this week.

First is something I do every day, even when my foot was bad.  We get up, I set up things for breakfast, feed the cat, take my medicine (all 90,000 pills or at least it feels that way) and we go for a walk.  When the weather is cooler and less humid we do 2 miles, when it's hot and humid like it is now we do a bit less.  But walk we do, every single day, winter, summer, spring and fall.

The second thing I do in the summer is  jump in the pool,  it's the quickest way to cool down and there is nothing worse than trying to eat breakfast and having sweat pour off of you. I like coffee for breakfast and I want it hot not iced, so I prefer to not be roasting as I drink it.

The third thing I do is aerobics, again, even when my foot was bad I still used my aerobic video and modified it so I wasn't hurting my foot too much.  Did it hurt some, well yes, but then I had bought a bubbling foot bath and soaked my foot in that afterwards.  My foot is getting better now so I can do more and do it stronger. I like Leslie's DVD, she works me out without doing me in. It feels good to do this every day, my body appreciates it even when my foot didn't.






The fourth thing is the music that played on my MP3 player while I worked out today.

The Boxer  by Simon and Garfunkel

You Might Think   by The Cars

Fast Car   by Tracy Chapman

Live Forever  by Oasis

Looking Out My Backdoor   by Creedence Clearwater Revial

I have my MP3 player on shuffle so I never know what might be coming next.

The Fifth thing is my Plumbago plant, such a pretty blue color.   Such a funny name I always think it sound like a bad case of rheumatism----Oh I can't do that my plumbago is acting up today.   I'd show you the rest of the garden, but it's so full of weeds it'd run you off.

Out of the Gene Pool

I never enjoy hearing of the death of someone, it's always sad no matter what the age.  But some people need to be removed from the gene pool to protect the species.  Two young men did exactly that this weekend.
One young man in Maine decided to launch a reusable mortar type firework from the top of his head. He was killed instantly.  Did I say he'd been drinking?  Well of course he had.
The other young man was down in Texas with his girlfriend and saw the sign saying No Swimming, Alligators.  He said something very rude to the alligator and jumped in.  The alligator, all 11 feet of him, killed the young man.  Did I say he'd been drinking?  Again, well of course he had.
Two tragic stories, sad for their families, but all in all better for the species.

Folding A Fitted Sheet Part Two

Last month I posted a Martha Stewart you tube video showing how to fold a fitted sheet.  It was quite funny.  Well this week, instead of washing and drying my sheets and putting them directly back on the bed I decided to give Martha's method a try.
I went to the computer room, put Martha's video on and tried to follow the directions while Mac took pictures.  What a joke!  They must have been folding a sheet small enough to fit a baby's bed.  We have a king-sized bed and the sheets are enormous.  No matter how I tried I couldn't get them to fold like the video.
At the end Mac handed me a pair of scissors and I felt like cutting the darn thing up.  Instead I kind of folded it, rolled it and stuffed it in the linen closet.
I admit it, I can't fold a fitted sheet.

Storm Damage

In my last post I said we'd had a bad storm and it was.  We lost the top part of one of our trees, easily 25 feet long with numerous heavy branches attached.  Too heavy for us to move, have to wait for our friend to come over with his chain saw.  Luckily it fell at the back of the yard and nowhere near the house.
We had a small storm last night, less thunder and lightning.  We've had over 4 inches of rain in the last couple of days.  I need to mow the lawn, but it's too wet, maybe tomorrow.  Supposed to be less rain as the week goes on, but the heat will be going up and we'll be heading towards the upper 90's again.  Well it is July and it was only 88º degrees yesterday.

In some other news I managed to soap my ring off my finger and we took it to a jeweler in town who does stone replacement and they're going to get me an estimate on the replacement and it should all be done in a couple of weeks.  I have to say my finger feels strange without it.

Delicious

A Low Country Boil is all well and good, love the shrimp (sorry Rowan), but it's not what we'd originally planned for the Fourth.  So today we had our own "little" feast.  Mac barbecued  a whole slab of pork ribs.  Enough for today and tomorrow.  They were incredibly good, sweet and juicy with no sauce, just a side of potato salad.
We would have gone into a carnivore stupor afterwards, but we had a tremendous thunderstorm that lasted for more than and hour and a half, very scary.  Miss Kitty is still under the couch, I thought about joining her a couple of times.
The main storm has finally cleared, but we're getting another round, not quite as violent this time.

Fourth of July

Happy fourth of July to all my American friends and family---my daughter has already celebrated in Japan.  To my English friends, sorry we had to break up that way.
We're off to a Low Country Boil, that's corn on the cob, sausages, red potatoes, Vidalia onions and shrimp.
There'll be bands playing and fireworks later, we'll be long gone by then as Georgia as now legalized all fireworks.
Have a safe and fun holiday.

Five on Friday

Time to join Amy (and others) at Love Made My Home for Five on Friday.  Where oh where has my week gone!  Still looking for my diamond, but no luck. We've found 2 places locally that replace stones, so next week we'll probably be doing that.

So, my Five:

First is my table decorated for the Fourth of July.  We won't be home we're off to a Low Country Boil tomorrow.

Second is a pair of spiders Mac made for me, I've been meaning to post about them forever.  At Christmas I ordered a couple of these spiders from Tanya at Dans le Lakehouse  (she has an Etsy shop) and Mac was inspired by them and decided to see if he could make me some.  I love them.

Third is a pair of rather summery/beachy  paintings of mine.  The orange bucket is an oil painting and the other is a water color.  Both hang in the small bathroom that is beachy with paint a sand color, lots of seashells and a lighthouse.

The fourth is Gudetama and friend.  What is a Gudetama you ask?  Well he is Sanrio's latest creation (they're the Japanese makers of Hello Kitty and other critters) and is known as the lazy egg.

Sanrio's egg-turned-mascot character gets its name from a combination of the words "gude" which isa Japanese onomatopoeia for describing something or someone with no energy or strength, and "tama" from the word tamara which mean egg in Japanese.  And of course Gudetama is an egg that has no energy or ambition.  I kept seeing him in posts by our daughter who is living in Japan and I fell in love with him so she sent me a pair.

And the fifth is a photo of 3 very summery bears who sit on the school desk in our living room.  They always make me smile when I go by.

The Power of Three or Why We Didn't Make it to the Movies This Week

We were supposed to go to the movies on Tuesday to see the new Jurassic World movie, but neither of us felt like making the effort so we put it off till Wednesday.
 Tuesday I filled our dishwasher, something I don't do very often, I usually wash dishes by hand.  I don't like running small loads and with the 2 of us it takes a while to get enough dishes to make a real load.  So I only run it occasionally to keep the rubber seals around the door from drying out---that happened on another dishwasher we had and we had to replace them.  So late Tuesday with enough dishes to make it worth while I turned the dishwasher on and it didn't work, didn't seem like it was getting any water.  Had the water line dried up?  Well it was 11 o'clock and we decided to wait until Wednesday to figure out what had gone wrong.  I say we knowing full well I mean Mac.
Then in the middle of the night I woke up sick, spent some quality time on the bathroom floor hanging around the porcelain throne.  It was not a good night.  The cat stayed with me for awhile, patting me as if to say, "There, there".
Wednesday I was better, but in no shape to sit through a movie.
Then Wednesday afternoon I looked down at my hand and discovered that the diamond had fallen out of my engagement ring.  I started to cry!  Mac held me and told me it'd be ok, he'd replace it.  But I was so sad, it's been a part of me for 50  years.
Since then we've both been tearing the house apart, Mac even took apart the drain on my sink.  So far no luck.  Mac says to give him till Tuesday to see if he can find it, if not we'll go and get it replaced.
Unfortunately my rings fits so tightly they'll probably have to cut the ring off.
Not a good week.